Various rod baffled heat exchangers have been disclosed in the art. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,736, which is hereby incorporated by reference. Several of these heat exchangers have been put into successful practical application. One of the continuing problems in such heat exchangers is to establish firm contact between the rods and the heat exchanger tubes. For example, one proposal to solve this problem was to provide rods with areas of varying cross section, sliding the rods between the tubes so that areas of each rod having small cross sections are replaced by areas of the rods having a larger cross section between the tubes. Thus, the area of the rod with larger cross section makes firm contact with the tubes. In this design rods are employed which have a special shape with alternating sections of smaller and larger cross sections. The rods also have to be longer than necessary for the heat exchanger in order to make possible the sliding movement.
It is one object of this invention to provide a rod baffle useful for heat exchangers with improved rods allowing firm contact and efficient heat transfer between the rods and the tubes.
Another object of this invention is to support tubes of a tube bundle in a manner which protects them from failure due to vibration.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a tube support to substantially reduce tube failure in a tube bundle and at the same time improve heat transfer efficiency.
Another object of this invention is to provide a heat exchanger incorporating such rod baffles.
A further object of this invention is to provide a process to produce such heat exchangers.